By Alexander Unzicker and Sheilla Jones
Part of the MacSci series on popular science
The recently celebrated discovery of the Higgs boson has captivated the public’s imagination with the promise that it can explain the origins of everything in the universe. It’s no wonder that the media refers to it grandly as the "God particle." Yet behind closed doors, physicists are admitting that there is much more to this story, and even years of gunning the Large Hadron Collider and herculean number crunching may still not lead to a deep understanding of the laws of nature.
In this fascinating and eye-opening account, theoretical physicist Alexander Unzicker and science writer Sheilla Jones offer a polemic. They question whether the large-scale, multinational enterprises actually lead us to the promised land of understanding the universe. The two scientists take us on a tour of contemporary physics and show how a series of highly publicized theories met a dead end.
Unzicker and Jones systematically unpack the recent hot theories such as "parallel universes," "string theory," and "inflationary cosmology," and provide an accessible explanation of each. They argue that physics has abandoned its evidence-based roots and shifted to untestable mathematical theories, and they issue a clarion call for the science to return to its experimental foundation.
July 2021
by Alexander Unzicker and Sheilla Jones
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA
Video: Alexander Unzicker interview, The Machian, 7 August, 2013
“Behind today’s increasingly far-fetched physics theories, there’s a rising chorus grumbling that the discipline has lost its way. The authors of this witty and earnest “book of doubts” join that choir, explaining how modern physics became “lost at sea” and what it can do to recover. The Standard Model of physics—a roster of particles and forces and their interactions—depends on 17 constants (numbers unexplained by the theory); galaxies spin faster than they should, thanks to “dark matter”—but after chasing it for 80 years, we still don’t know what it is; and some theorists say there is a “dark energy” pushing the universe apart, which is created by a field called the “quintessence,” a concept straight out of speculative medieval science. And then there’s the niggling worry that values like G, the gravitational constant, might not be so constant, or that our perception of time isn’t correct. From “Higgsmania” and string theory to cosmological mysteries, neuroscientist Unzicker and Jones (The Quantum Ten) lobby for math that’s more down-to-earth and a reorientation of attention toward phenomena that can actually be measured. Their assertion that “science means, after all, not being a sucker” is well worth taking to heart.” — Publishers Weekly
“A broad dismissal of modern theoretical physicists…Unzicker also targets the massive expenditures of funds on high-energy particle accelerators.” — Kirkus Reviews
"Over the last 30 years, technological advances, including space telescopes and powerful particle accelerators, have turned our understanding of the universe on its head. This has led to new and strange concepts, such as dark matter, dark energy, string theory, inflation and the search for the Higgs boson.
Unzicker and Jones deal with these in varying amounts of detail but usually with enough to give an understanding of some of the basics of the field. There are also a great many stories from science lore and a ton of interesting quotes from famous people (mainly scientists)... an entertaining and informative read." —Winnipeg Free Press
"Unzicker's arguments are well-grounded, sound, [and] informed." —Scientific American (German edition)
"Bankrupting Physics is a blunt, but entertaining account of the current state of fundamental physics. The reader may not necessarily have the same opinion as the authors, but they will bear witness to some of the field's unchallengeable high priests in action, and question whether the system itself is now in a period of stagnation. How does the struggle for power and money among modern scientists compromise the quest for uncovering the true secrets of nature? This is a worthwhile book to read that is guaranteed to raise some controversy, and is likely to receive a critical reception by the very actors it is reporting on." — Pavel Kroupa, University of Bonn
“Unzicker dares to think outside the mainstream. Readers will find a refreshing and provoking book that pushes the physics community to refocus how it conducts science.” — Hans Volker Klapdor-Kleingrothaus, University of Heidelberg
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